This document summarizes a study on a watershed project in India that aimed to increase drought resilience. It found that: 1) Gender norms and social hierarchies influenced labor divisions and women's mobility, with Scheduled Caste women facing fewer restrictions. 2) Providing women economic support like growing trees on field bunds could perpetuate gender dependencies, as men stated the trees would be sold for girls' dowries. 3) Future projects need gender-sensitive designs, empowering communities through decision-making, and recognizing behavior change as an important outcome when implementing in patriarchal contexts.

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Apr 2019
Gender and social inclusion approach in watershed
projects in Parasai-Sindh watershed, India
Introduction
Adoption of innovations increasingly involves an understanding of existing cultural and
social norms in a given context. However, such evidence is limited or lacking, especially
for watershed projects.
The ICRISAT-CAFRI community watershed project in Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh
state in India highlights the challenges in and the opportunities to empower communities
by enhancing awareness of and sensitivity to gender and social norms.
Padmaja R1
, Kavitha K1
, Stephenie Leder2
, Ramesh Singh3
and Anthony Whitbread1
1
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics
2
Consultant, CRP-WLE
3
Central Agro-forestry Research Institute
Interacting with women in one of the study
villages.
Haweli, the traditional water harvesting
structure in village Parasai.
Objectives and Methodology
▪▪ Aim: To increase drought resilience
of farming communities through
groundwater recharge and agroforestry
interventions.
▪▪ Pilot sites: 3 villages in Bundelkhand
region (Parasai, Chhatpur and Bachauni)
covering 1250 ha and with a population
of 210 households (1068 male and 850
female members).
▪▪ Watershed interventions implemented
during 2011 -2014: Building check dams;
restoring existing structures, among
others.
▪▪ Post intervention, data was generated
through quantitative and qualitative social
analysis tools to understand their benefits
to women, men, and the community.
▪▪ Analysis involved 560 individuals in the
three villages plus a control village.
▪▪ 33 semi-structured interviews and Focus
Group discussions (FGDs) conducted.
▪▪ The Gender in Irrigation Learning and
Improvement Tool (GILIT) by the CGIAR
Research Program on Water, Land and
Ecosystems (WLE), piloted by IWMI, was
implemented as part of the post- intervention data collection.
A check dam in Bachhauni village.
Findings
Gender norms operate through
social structures that keep
hierarchies in place
▪▪ Labor division in agricultural
activities in the villages is driven
by gender and social norms
▪▪ Compared to women from
upper castes, those from the
Scheduled Castes (socially
marginalized groups) have
greater mobility and are subject
to fewer strict norms.
▪▪ Status quo of hierarchies is
primarily due to norms that
operate through the social
structure itself.
Gender equality = Land for boys,
bund for girls
Based on a felt need by the men
and women during quantitative and
qualitative engagements with them,
teak wood saplings were provided to
be grown on field bunds. The lands/
fields were meant for the boys. Our data suggests that these teak wood trees would be
later sold to pay for the dowry of girls.
Important insights
▪▪ Well intended interventions targeted at supporting women based on their stated
need for economic support could perpetuate gender relations of dependence.
▪▪ Focusing on economic empowerment alone sweeps aside the need for social change
which could make women more self-reliant.
▪▪ Going beyond the initial interventions can help develop gender-sensitive project
designs in the future.
Conclusions
▪▪ Fusing social and technical interventions can increase women’s awareness, and their
access to and decision making over resources.
▪▪ Develop evolving mechanisms that empower communities (men and women) to
participate in decision making at various levels and for different purposes.
▪▪ When implementing watershed projects in highly patriarchical contexts as in the
Bundelkhand region, behavior change must be recognized as an important outcome.
▪▪ Sensitization to strengthen systematic and gender-sensitive institution building,
social engagement, and capacity development.